The other day we came across this banner ad for IMVU. The story should be easy enough to figure out: two hot avatars meet, and hey, one thing leads to another. "Live the lifestyle you've always dreamed of," the piece concludes, followed by IMVU's standard CTA: "Meet new people."

We were pretty incredulous about this "lifestyle you've always dreamed of" crap, but then we thought, hey, being sexy and promiscuous in a virtual world is probably infinitely safer than doing it in the Ritz bathroom. Anyway, since then we've seen a couple of other IMVU ads that better illustrate what IMVU means when it says dreamed of.

Ad land has this incredible talent for bastardizing beautiful things, and doing it in a way where we're like, hey, that's kind of cool.

That's the feeling you get when you watch "Burger Grease Art," where a guy uses the grease from non-Arby's burgers to create a giant reproduction of Da Vinci's enigmatic lady.

Across the bottom of the video -- which we really couldn't help sitting through, even as we clutched our stomachs and began to dry-heave -- is a link to burgergreaseart.com, which tackles your line of sight with three appealingly matte Arby's Roastburgers. (For some reason, we kinda hoped for an Etch-a-Sketchy painting game, except with grease, but no dice.)

Got this email blast from Echelon Studios this morning and that header totally perplexed us. What else could we ask for? In my mind, Steve was all, "Hot bitches!" -- and I was like, "...microfiber cloth...?"

The blast is a promotion for two (appropriately) made-for-DVD titles: Death Rattle Crystal Ice ("meth, murder, mayhem"!) and Blood-Stained Romance ("sometimes love doesn't have a happy ending"). Priceless blurbage from the latter:

Soon lies turn to murder launching Holden into a spiraling bloodbath of violence and desperation as he tries to hide the infatuation that feeds his madness. Through it all, he tries to cling to a trembling grip on reality, as love and pain coalesce into a shocking "climax".

For a company like Carl's Jr. to say "Eat Responsibly" is a joke. Oh wait, it's supposed to be a joke or at least we hope it is because they've been hyping their fat-filled, artery clogging burgers for years.

It was one thing to watch a hot socialite seductively eat a burger while making love to a Bentley. It's an entirely different - and a bit disconcerting - to watch a doctor scarf down a Kentucky Bourbon burger between surgeries.

Looks like Philips Shave Everywhere, pretty cool at the time, has been upstaged by Wilkinson Sword's Ma Garden Party (se video here)which officially launches March 16. Hooking up with French singer Simone elle est bonne, the brand is out to show just how much fun it can be to "garden."

It's a catchy tune. We're sure it'd be even more catchy if we could understand the lyrics. But you don't really need to to get what's going on and understand the message.

Real? Fake? Oh, who cares. After all, it's really not the point. All this stunt advertising stuff is supposed to just be fun so we're going to leave the "real or fake" analysis the the web weenies who can't help but take the fun out of everything by analyzing it to death.

Anyway, on with the story. Vodafone, that company that loves to throw snowballs in a girl's faces that look nothing like snowballs, is out with a stunt that has driver Lewis Hamilton operate his McLaren vehicle with a Blackberry.

Funny how the car doesn't run off the track when he turns to beam a smile at his pit crew after taking the car out onto the track.

The associated microsite guides shaving addicts to Stepping Stones Retreat, where a slightly Running with Scissors-y doctor will promise to cure you of glabermania while eye-raping you with Nivea shaving products. Compulsive shavers will no doubt be pleased.

Hmm. Maybe it's like that scene in the Sylvester Stallone/Sandra Bullock movie Demolition Man where future cop answers the phone saying, "Hello, this is the Los Angeles police department. Press one for an automated attendant or stay on the line to speak to me" or something like that.

VCCP Berlin has produced a commercial for O2 which depicts all sorts of robots in retirement with a voiceover that, OMG, you can now talk to an actual live human being when you call the company.

Wow. How novel. How did we ever get to a place where insanely annoying phone trees became the norm?